Chapter 1-The Prologue
Most investigators accept that Elias Ward died from a lightning strike, or from some sudden shock that stopped his heart. It is true that his cottage showed no sign of fire or storm damage, but nature has always been capable of strange accidents. The frozen look on his face might seem horrifying, but it could easily have been just a final muscle spasm, not a reaction to anything he truly saw.
The diary found near him is troubling, yes, but still most believe it to be the work of a grieving mind, stirred up by isolation and by the strange reputation of Ashwick. The villagers are a superstitious lot, and Ward was a man already drawn to strange ideas.
Even the odd events reported by those who lived nearest to him — strange lights, muffled sounds at night — are explained away as tricks of weather, or tricks of the mind. And after all, Ward had been a man of science his whole life. If he was chasing after something strange, it may have been nothing more than a personal experiment gone wrong.
Yet, there are still those who read the diary and refuse to accept these comfortable answers. They point to how calm and precise his early entries were, how his descriptions match things no ordinary man could have guessed. They speak of the way his handwriting changed, the way his words grew frantic. And they point most of all to the look on Elias Ward’s face — a look of such terror that even the most skeptical hesitate when they see it described.
Between these two opinions — one rational, one far less so — the reader must decide. The newspapers have already told the story in the safest way they could. What follows are Elias Ward’s own words, left behind in the last weeks of his life. Read them, and judge for yourself what truly happened in Ashwick.
